[robere]

So I'm trying to think of a scenario where there is no queen in a hive and no queen cells either. If the queen is failing,why wouldnt they make cells? My inspections werent far enough apart for them to make cells and the queen didnt make it back from her mating flight. If the queen suddenly died,why wouldnt they make cells? They'd have about 6 days to make cells once noticing there was a problem with the queen (from an egg to 3 day old larvae). I could see if they were honey bound and the queen had no where to lay,then several days later she died.

 

[Nelsonhoneyfarms]

Several questions - What were the specific dates of the inspections? Did you see eggs on those inspections? If not, when did you last see eggs?

 

[Eikel]

The short version of one scenario is you missed a couple supersedure cells, that's not meant as a negative comment. If bees are not removed from the comb and each frame looked at very thoroughly, it's easy to miss QCs. Particularly, if the bees only put a couple supersedure cells on the lower edges of a partially drawn frames, easy to miss even when you're looking for them. Not the level of detail I conduct for a normal "healthy hive" inspection.


The other scenario is queens and QCs use Klingon Cloaking Technology, only valid explanation on how some queens can be missed on more than one pass through a hive.

 

[robere]

Cant say exactly to the day that I did the last inspection. There were no eggs just older larvae. I'm thinking Eikel is probably correct. I probably just missed seeing a cell or two.